West Midlands Police awards Civica managed services contract
Sector specialist to host and manage police website over 3 years
10 May 2006, Sheffield … Civica plc, one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software and managed services to the public sector, has been awarded a 3-year contract by West Midlands Police to host and manage its website.
West Midlands Police, the second largest force in the country, covers the cities of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry and the metropolitan boroughs of Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley and Solihull, with almost 8500 police officers and over 4000 police staff.
The West Midlands Police website provides an online service to a population of over 2.5 million people, serving approximately 1500 visitors every day.
With the Home Office considering options to reorganise the police service into fewer larger ‘strategic forces’, an imperative is to sustain a strong bond with local communities and local accountability.
“We want to encourage the local community to contact us through whichever communications channel they prefer and our website has already proven to be very popular. With Civica looking after the site we can concentrate on delivering the right information quickly online and respond rapidly to incoming enquiries to help our officers tackle crime and improve the safety of the local area for everyone,” said Steve Oliver, ICT ePolicing Project Leader, West Midlands Police.
It was crucial to West Midlands Police that they have a solution that can adapt to new technologies and deliver real benefits to its citizens. Utilising industry leading technology from Microsoft, Cisco and HP, the solution designed by Civica has been built to deliver a high level of performance and reliability.
Automated tools constantly monitor the website for potential faults and take actions to resolve them prior to it affecting availability. All issues will be directed to one single point of contact, the Civica Support Desk, where experienced professionals will take ownership of every ‘call’ until it is resolved.
Enquiries are managed via an ITIL-compliant management system, providing a clear audit trail for both management reporting and problem management activities.
Civica will provide West Midlands Police with a highly secure 24x7 environment for efficient and continuous operations, using the latest power management, environment and fire suppression technology.
Under the contract Civica will be responsible for all of the server hardware, relevant software updates and security, as well as providing high performance internet connectivity.
A full press release an be downloaded here...